My Niece gave me a handmade Greeting Card recently. It felt so nice to know that someone thought of me and made me something special. I feel giving someone a handmade Greeting Card adds a personal touch. With the festive season approaching I thought it would be nice to share a simple and easy method to make a handmade Greeting Card using Ink Pens and Watercolours. I have shared two designs but you can always be creative and add your special touch to it. You can do traditional designs or even contemporary illustrations with the same technique.

First let us collect the Art Material that we will need :

1) Pencil and Eraser – I usually use a 2B pencil and a regular eraser

2) Ink Pens of any good brand with Waterproof Inks or Archival Inks – Waterproof will be written on the pens. These are available in different tips ; sizes, colours and brushes. A notable feature of these pens is that once the ink dries, you can easily use watercolour over them. It won’t smudge.

3) Drawing Paper or Card Paper with a minimum thickness of 180 – 200GSM. Basically a paper suitable for Watercolour Paintings. A notable feature here is that the paper absorbs the water and doesn’t peel off with use of water. Ideally 300 GSM is very good for Watercolour but it is too thick to fold for a Greeting Card.

4) Watercolours (Any colour; Tubes or Cakes) and Brushes

5) Compass, Ruler, Protractor and/or other Measuring Tools (Optional)

The process:-

1) Draw your design using the measuring tools in Pencil.

2) Use a pen with a thin tip like ‘005’ or ‘01’ and outline the Art. Do only the main outline. Don’t fill in the details yet. The idea is to block the main markings which will assist when you paint after doing the background. If you are very confident you can directly paint after the background but for most people these markings make it neat and easy.

3) Erase the extra pencil markings.

4) Use watercolours and shade the background with colours of your choice. Kindly avoid gouache paint or thick paint, it will make the steps listed below difficult.

5) Let it Dry completely. I list this as an important step. This is so that your pen tips do not get spoilt with moisture or excess colour that isn’t dried yet. It is the same reason I asked to avoid thick paint.

6) Now paint the details to your Design using the waterproof ink pens. This will be the final look.

You may use colour pencils, coloured pens and embellishments to add some aesthetic touches to your work. There you go! Last but not the least write your personal message and our beautiful handmade Greeting Card is ready! Wishing everyone a very Arty Weekend!

Pro Tip – You may also combine this with Paper Quilling and Stamping.